


Perfect Pearl

by Hadithi



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: SUF spoilers, Volleyball spoilers, canon typical violence and abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21726256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hadithi/pseuds/Hadithi
Summary: It takes a long time and a lot of tantrums for White to consider giving Pink her own Pearl, but that’s how everything works in the palace. It’s how it always works. As long as she’s persistent, eventually things will go her way. She just has to put up with the awful game that gets her there.Pink Diamond gets herself a new pearl, then loses her.
Comments: 35
Kudos: 241





	Perfect Pearl

**Author's Note:**

> So, Volleyball combined with Sugar's instagram of PD concept sketches inspired me to make this. Just full on angst, like most things in Pink's backstory.

It takes a long time and a lot of tantrums for White to consider giving Pink her own Pearl, but that’s how everything works in the palace. It’s how it always works. As long as she’s persistent, eventually things will go her way. She just has to put up with the awful game that gets her there.

“Let me go!” she shrieks in Yellow’s grasp.

The bigger gem is dragging her to her room, and Pink’s power rolls off of her in waves. Flare after flare destroys the floor and the walls as they go, stripping the pretty veneer down to the unbreakable stuff beneath. Her power makes Yellow hiss and twitch from the sting, and Yellow zaps her back.

They have a screaming match before Yellow leaves her alone in the tower. It goes the same with Blue, except Blue makes her cry instead of stinging back. Blue’s such a whiner. Pink uses her powers to make Blue cry too, angry zaps that break her down. It’s an awful game, but the only one they ever play.

This time the prize will be a Pearl, so Pink must hold out extra, extra long. Between the screaming, she sweetens. She is all tenderness and obedience and being so very, very adorable to the other Diamonds. She bats her lashes and does cartwheels and sings so pretty for them that they love her.

White never finds her as adorable as Yellow and Blue do.

“Starlight, this has gone on long enough, don’t you think?” White says.

Pink stares up at her. White tries to go all sweetness like she does, but the tallest gem has never had the skill. Or maybe, maybe it’s about the bubble. Maybe it’s the way white light clashes on pink. Pink burns and White ignores her power like it’s no more than a gust of wind. White burns back and pink raises her bubble, and everything bounces away. They scream and shriek, both unstoppable and totally stopped.

“Fine,” she says, thousands of years later. “You may have a Pearl.”

Her Pearl is pretty and lovely and darling and precious and the most beautiful Pearl of all. _Aren’t you, Pearl? Yes, my Diamond._ Pink struts with her from base to base. _Have you heard I have a Pearl?_ She carries her like a pet and nuzzles her and shoes her off to everyone she meets, because the world is bubbly pink bliss.

Her Pearl loves her.

Her Pearl never hurts her.

She cuddles her Pearl to her chest and sighs, safe and happy. She’s never been either of those things before, not with another gem around. Other gems would report her to the other Diamonds, but her Pearl is _hers_ , and they love each other. They would never tell. So much so that Pink does her best to hide her Pearl away from White as much as she can. Any time White’s eyes find her dear Pearl, her love, her heart, Pink feels an icy chill like the dark space between galaxies creeping up her back.

That doesn’t stop the game, though. There’s an even bigger prize now.

“I want my own planet!” she screams.

Yellow brushes her aside.

“I want my own colony!” she bellows.

Blue throws her in her tower.

“I’m just as important as they are!” she shrieks.

Pearl is close by, her love, her heart.

She’s trying to comfort her.

She’s

She’s

No no no no please no please

It’s not supposed to be this way

There are spiderweb cracks on the gem in her hands and she sobs with fear. Pink power whips out around her, flaring again and again with every wail of despair. She has cried before, but there has never been grief. Grief is a screaming thing, and aching thing, where everything inside is ripped apart and streams out through the mouth. 

She has to stop, because every time her tears fix the cracks her sob hits it again and it’s _Pearl_ . Her precious Pearl is in there being hurt again and again, and she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t _mean_ to! She didn’t know! It never hurt the Diamonds so how could she know if…

Were there other gems around when she screamed?

Was anyone ever there?

She broke the floors and

Oh

The walls. The walls were gems.

_No_

Everything is suddenly very quiet.

When Pink reforms, Pearl is there, staring with one good eye and one bad. Pink tries her best to fix it. She doesn’t cry when it doesn’t work, and it’s very, very hard not to. But she doesn’t cry, and no scream cracks her Pearl again.

“White,” she says, cradling her heart in her arms. “Help her.”

White looks down from her throne, down her nose. Her long fingers come to her lips, and the gasp of shock is borderline mocking. “Oh, dear dear dear. Starlight, what happened?”

She needs her bubble. She needs to scream. White is coming for her because that is what White does. The world is an endless fight of scratching at weaknesses and cruelty dripping with illusionary love, and she was part of it. But now, she is not. She is exposed before White. She can only hope for mercy.

“Please fix her.”

Long nails tug her Pearl, her perfect, precious Pearl, from her arms. White croons. “Oh, no. You’ve broken her. I’m afraid I’ll have to-”

“Don’t!” Pink screams, and barely cuts of her power before it reaches White. “No, shattering, White, please. Please, I’ll just take her back like that! We don’t need to break her when I can just keep her!”

Pink has lost everything in this moment. She knows it down to her core. Brilliance gleams from the eyes above her, hungry and predatory at the weakness Pink has gifted to her in such a meaningless package. But Pearl is so much more important than the awful game the Diamonds play. She can be left defenseless and take the blows unguarded if only Pearl is safe.

Perfect Pearl, no longer pink, is set before her. She does not look fixed at all. Everything inside Pink is pure revulsion as the thing speaks: “We’ll get you a nicer looking Pearl, Starlight. I’ve fixed her to my standards, but she hardly matches you anymore.”

“No,” Pink says. Everything is empty and colorless. Has White used her power on Pink as well? It doesn’t matter. “She doesn’t match me.”

“Say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Starlight, smile. I did just what you asked. You should be happy.”

Somehow, she does. She smiles bright, and she turns away. She goes back to her room and tucks the pebbles very safely away. She stands in the empty pink box. She screams the veneer down to gray, unbreakable stuff with sobbing grief.

Perfect Pearl hands her a new Pearl, popping the bubble and dropping it into her hands. The weight is infinite, dragging her down to her knees as White’s voice oozes from that monochrome mouth.

“Don’t break this one.”


End file.
